Cases We Handle

Negligence claims arise when someone else’s carelessness — an employer, a vessel owner, a contractor — causes an injury on the water. For seafarers, this falls under the Jones Act. For harbor workers and others, it falls under general maritime negligence law. It’s often the starting point in a maritime injury case.

Vessel owners have an absolute duty to keep their vessels, gear, and crew reasonably fit for the job — regardless of fault. When that duty is broken and a seafarer gets hurt because of it, that’s an unseaworthiness claim, and it doesn’t require proving anyone was negligent.

This no-fault standard makes unseaworthiness one of the strongest claims available to an injured seafarer, and we routinely bring it alongside a Jones Act negligence claim to give our clients two separate paths toward full recovery. Our unseaworthiness page covers what actually makes a vessel unfit, and what to do if you believe a defective condition caused your injury.

This is the claim most seafarers already know by name, even if they don’t know the legal term for anything else. If you’re a seaman injured or taken ill while in the service of a vessel, you’re entitled to maintenance (living expenses) and cure (medical care) — no fault required.

Despite how simple the concept sounds, maintenance and cure disputes are common, because employers frequently underpay the daily rate or cut off benefits before a seafarer has actually reached maximum medical improvement. Our full page on this topic explains exactly what you’re owed and what to do if your payments have been reduced or stopped.

When a death occurs more than 3 nautical miles offshore, a different federal law — the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) — often controls the wrongful death claim. Whether DOHSA or another law applies depends on the facts, and it can get complicated fast.

DOHSA and the Jones Act were passed the same year and were designed to work alongside each other, which means a single tragedy can sometimes involve claims under both laws at once. Our DOHSA page walks families through this distinction in plain language, along with what damages are actually available under this specific law.

If you’re a seafarer — a member of the crew of a vessel — special federal protections apply to you, and that’s the Jones Act. It covers negligence, unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure, and wrongful death claims brought by or on behalf of crew members.

Qualifying as a “seaman” under the Jones Act doesn’t require a specific license or job title — it depends on how much time you spend aboard a vessel in navigation and how your work contributes to its mission. Our Jones Act page covers who qualifies, what the law covers, and the defenses employers commonly raise to try to avoid it.

Longshoremen and other harbor workers hurt on the job already have a workers’ compensation claim through their employer. But when the fault lies with someone else — another contractor, a vessel’s crew, the terminal operator — there’s often a separate third-party claim available under Section 905(b). Although we do not handle workers’ compensation claims, we work hand-in-hand with our clients’ comp lawyers while we handle their separate third-party claims to maximize our client’s total recovery.

These cases are some of the most complex we handle, in part because they frequently involve claims against government-owned vessels and facilities, which come with their own procedural rules. Our full page on this topic explains how these claims work alongside your existing workers’ comp benefits, and why claims against the government require specific experience.

Passengers aren’t crew members, so the Jones Act doesn’t apply to them. Instead, cruise passenger injuries — slip and falls, negligent security, shore excursion accidents — are handled under ordinary negligence principles, with their own set of strict deadlines built into the cruise ticket contract.

Those deadlines are often much shorter than passengers expect, sometimes requiring written notice within just a few months of the injury. Our cruise passenger claims page details exactly what those ticket contracts typically require, and what to do immediately after getting hurt aboard a cruise ship.